<img src="http://www.nitromater.com/gallery/files/5/D_Worsham07.jpg" alt="D_Worsham07" align="right"borders="0"/>
ORANGE, Calif. (January 16, 2008) -- For most of the last month, Del Worsham, owner/driver/tuner of the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Funny Car, had planned to spend the weekend of January 18-20 right where he's been all winter, at his team's headquarters in Southern California. Worsham was fully aware of the annual "Nitro Blast-Off" pre-season testing event, set for this weekend at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and his team has routinely been a part of that event in past years, but a number of rare factors conspired to convince him to look beyond the first 2008 "spring training" session in an effort to be fully ready for the NHRA POWERade season opener in Pomona, February 7-10. In the end, it was yet another of those rare factors that changed his mind. Worsham and his CSK team now plan to attend this weekend's test session in Las Vegas, with a specific plan in place.
"At the end of last season, we went through quite a few changes around here," Worsham said. "We downsized from two CSK Funny Cars to one, we retained only two of our red team crew members from the '07 season, and we hired two new guys who are making their pro debuts. Over the winter, we've been building a new car, making all the changes that kept coming in the chassis and safety areas, and doing all we can to have our ducks all lined up for Pomona. With all of that, and since it's usually pretty chilly this time of year in Las Vegas, I just had it in my head that we weren't going. All along we've been planning to go to the Phoenix test session, the next weekend, but because it was such a strange off-season with so many changes, I just thought our work needed to get done more than we needed to pack up and move over to Vegas for this first weekend.
"Then, as everyone knows, the news of the Torco situation hit the internet last week, and in the aftermath of that we made a decision to make another big change. We added two very good crew members from one of the teams that was parked, so now we have four guys who have never worked with each other before, as well as the two carry-over guys, Ryan McGilvry and Matt Madden, who were only with us one year. In the end, what these guys all wanted was some real practice, some real spring training. They want to fire the car, put it on the track, work together at the startling line, and then service it between runs, and we can't fabricate that here at the shop. We're not going to Vegas to prove anything on the track. We're really going over there to practice, to start to turn these individual guys into a team, and to begin the process of getting in 'game shape' under real conditions."
By hiring two new crew members from a now-parked team, Worsham also added some much-needed depth to what had been a young squad. He will now have six full-time crew members working on his car, in addition to himself, his father Chuck, and former CSK blue team co-crew chief Marc Denner, who was the sole blue team member retained after that team was mothballed in November.
"Before the new additions this week, we had enough people to service the car, but really just at the minimum," Worsham said. "There was no getting around the fact that Marc and I felt like we were going to be very hands-on this year, and we still will be because it's my goal to be more in touch with what's happening on the race car, but now we've brought in some more experience and the best thing we can do is get them out there and let them race. We're not going over there with a real aggressive agenda, and I can't even say what time, or what day, we'll tow up for our first lap, but we'll be there and we'll be working
as a team, on a Funny Car, at the race track. It's spring training, and that's good for all of us. And now that we've made the decision, we're all pretty much itching to go."
The complete roster of the 2008 Checker, Schuck's, Kragen team will be released prior to the 2008 NHRA Winternationals, and full biographies of all crew members will then be posted on the team's official website, at delworsham.com.
RECENT CHANGES HAVE WORSHAM AIMING FOR LAS VEGAS TESTING THIS WEEKEND
ORANGE, Calif. (January 16, 2008) -- For most of the last month, Del Worsham, owner/driver/tuner of the Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Funny Car, had planned to spend the weekend of January 18-20 right where he's been all winter, at his team's headquarters in Southern California. Worsham was fully aware of the annual "Nitro Blast-Off" pre-season testing event, set for this weekend at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and his team has routinely been a part of that event in past years, but a number of rare factors conspired to convince him to look beyond the first 2008 "spring training" session in an effort to be fully ready for the NHRA POWERade season opener in Pomona, February 7-10. In the end, it was yet another of those rare factors that changed his mind. Worsham and his CSK team now plan to attend this weekend's test session in Las Vegas, with a specific plan in place.
"At the end of last season, we went through quite a few changes around here," Worsham said. "We downsized from two CSK Funny Cars to one, we retained only two of our red team crew members from the '07 season, and we hired two new guys who are making their pro debuts. Over the winter, we've been building a new car, making all the changes that kept coming in the chassis and safety areas, and doing all we can to have our ducks all lined up for Pomona. With all of that, and since it's usually pretty chilly this time of year in Las Vegas, I just had it in my head that we weren't going. All along we've been planning to go to the Phoenix test session, the next weekend, but because it was such a strange off-season with so many changes, I just thought our work needed to get done more than we needed to pack up and move over to Vegas for this first weekend.
"Then, as everyone knows, the news of the Torco situation hit the internet last week, and in the aftermath of that we made a decision to make another big change. We added two very good crew members from one of the teams that was parked, so now we have four guys who have never worked with each other before, as well as the two carry-over guys, Ryan McGilvry and Matt Madden, who were only with us one year. In the end, what these guys all wanted was some real practice, some real spring training. They want to fire the car, put it on the track, work together at the startling line, and then service it between runs, and we can't fabricate that here at the shop. We're not going to Vegas to prove anything on the track. We're really going over there to practice, to start to turn these individual guys into a team, and to begin the process of getting in 'game shape' under real conditions."
By hiring two new crew members from a now-parked team, Worsham also added some much-needed depth to what had been a young squad. He will now have six full-time crew members working on his car, in addition to himself, his father Chuck, and former CSK blue team co-crew chief Marc Denner, who was the sole blue team member retained after that team was mothballed in November.
"Before the new additions this week, we had enough people to service the car, but really just at the minimum," Worsham said. "There was no getting around the fact that Marc and I felt like we were going to be very hands-on this year, and we still will be because it's my goal to be more in touch with what's happening on the race car, but now we've brought in some more experience and the best thing we can do is get them out there and let them race. We're not going over there with a real aggressive agenda, and I can't even say what time, or what day, we'll tow up for our first lap, but we'll be there and we'll be working
as a team, on a Funny Car, at the race track. It's spring training, and that's good for all of us. And now that we've made the decision, we're all pretty much itching to go."
The complete roster of the 2008 Checker, Schuck's, Kragen team will be released prior to the 2008 NHRA Winternationals, and full biographies of all crew members will then be posted on the team's official website, at delworsham.com.
